The Ashberg Diamond
Origin of name
The Ashberg diamond gets its actual name from Mr. Ashberg, a chief Stockholm banker, who attains the diamond from a Russian trade designation that visited Sweden in 1934.
Characteristics of the stone
The Ashberg diamond is a 102.48-carat, amber-colored cushion -shaped diamond. The accurate color and clarity ratings of the diamond are not identified. Amber color is a fuzzy term. It's a patchy color which could indicate something between yellow, brown and orange, i. e. a grouping of any two of these colors. Therefore the name is not suitable to describe a diamond. However going by the photographs of the diamond, the Ashberg emerges to be a dark brownish yellow diamond.
If the diamond is a gloomy brownish yellow diamond, it must be a Type Ib diamond, as intense yellow colors are associated with the distribution of nitrogen as single atoms, scattered all over the crystal. These atoms absorb visible light in the blue region of the spectrum, causing the complementary color yellow to manifest. If the nitrogen atoms are found as groups of atoms the colors imparted will be pale to medium yellow, as found in Type Ia diamonds. The brown color is possibly caused by plastic distortion of the crystal in certain areas.
History of the diamond
The Ashberg diamond was once a division of the Russian Crown Jewels, a wonderful collection of jewels and jewelry, started throughout the point of Emperor Peter the Great of Russia in 1719. The group was then enhanced by successive Czars and Czarinas who lined Russia until the Bolshevik revolution of 1917.
The Stone appears to be of South African source, as it allows all the uniqueness of diamonds initiated in South Africa. It is no doubt sandstone of the Cape series of diamonds. Therefore the Ashberg diamond must have been a delayed addition to the Russian Crown Jewels, as diamonds were first exposed in South Africa merely in the mid 1860s.
In the year 1926 subsequent to the October Bolshevik revolution, the Russian Crown Jewels were catalogued and demonstrated, as the new Soviet Socialist Government planned to arrange of all the jewelry in their entirety. Some of the ornaments were pilfered and established their technique to the London auction rooms. But, later the plan as a complete was discarded and the resources were moved to the Kremlin Diamond Fund, established in 1922.
In the year 1934, a Russian trade designation to Sweden, advertised the diamond to Mr. Ashberg, a chief Stockholm banker. The Stockholm dense of Bolin, previous Crown Jewelers to the court of St. Petersburg, increases the diamond as a pendant to a diamond necklace. In 1949, the Ashberg diamond was show mounted on a pendant to a necklace holding diamonds and new gemstones, at the Amsterdam Diamond Exhibition.
After ten years in 1959, an auction residence in Stockholm, Sweden, the Bukowski, set up the Ashberg diamond for trade, but had to take out it later, as it was disastrous to attain its set aside. However, the owner of the diamond succeeded in negotiating a profitable deal, with a private buyer, but the name of the buyer was not disclosed. Finally in May 1981,the Ashberg diamond came up for sale, at a Christie's auction in Geneva, where once again it failed to attain its reserve and was introverted.
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